February 4

Today we were to go to the Melotto School in Chimaltenango. We got up at 5:00 a.m. so that we could meet Kristen in La Antigua by 6:45 a.m., which was the time she told us she would need to leave today. We were down by the highway by about 6:15 a.m. and decided that we would never make it to La Antigua on time after two full chicken buses declined to stop and pick us up.

Compounding our problems was the loss of our Internet connection last night. It seems to be back today, but was very flaky. We finally decided to postpone our return trip to the Melotto School until I'm able to download and burn the Qimo Linux distribution. Qimo is an operating system and set of games/educational tools that is aimed at children. I'm hoping that it will be possible to run in in Spanish, since there are Spanish language programmers working on it.

After returning to the apartment, we decided that we had some tasks we needed to accomplish. First, we needed to take our dirty clothes to a lavandaria (laundry). We then needed to update our blogs, since our Internet access at the apartment was out. I needed to download a copy of Qimo, a Linux distribution for children that I wanted to test at the Melotto School. We needed to get more minutes for our cell phones and, finally, we needed more groceries.

After making our shopping list and deciding what we needed to take with us, we once again walked down to the highway. In a short time, a chicken bus appeared and, this time, stopped to pick us up. In no time we were in La Antigua and began looking for the lavanderia we had used back in 2007. We found it and arranged to pick up our clean clothes at 1:00 p.m.

Our next stop was the study center established by the government of Spain in the former and restored Compañia de Jesus church. While it is a quiet and pleasant study site, I discovered that it lacked free wi-fi (wireless Internet). We then headed for a famous American eatery that offers Internet access - McDonald's, but it too lacked free wi-fi. Our third stop, Pollo Campero (the Guatemalan equivalent of KFC), was successful.

Typically, businesses offering free wi-fi expect you to purchase something, so we did. Our first purchase was two bottles of agua pura (bottled water). We nursed them as we set up our netbook and uploaded our blog files. Soon I decided to try to download Qimo, a Linux distribution for children that includes an assortment of games. Qimo is 698 MB and it took us about three hours to get it downloaded. During that time we had two Mediterranian salads (with chicken strips), two cono helado suave (soft serve ice cream) and, finally, as we were almost finished with our downloading, an order of papas fritas grande (large order of fries), which we enjoyed with a hot verde (green) sauce, as Guatemalan ketchup is about half sugar we were told.

While we were almost finished with our three-hour download, I went over to the lavanderia to pick up our laundry and stopped by a tienda to pick up some cell phone minutes, since it was triple saldo day (three minutes for the price of one). Once the download was complete, we headed to the mercado to pick up some fruit and vegetables. We've started making soup for dinner as it's something that is easy to fix on our little three-burner propane stove. After we found our way out of the mercado (rabbit warren isn't complex enough to describe it), I left Linda on a bench at the Mercado Artesiana (artisan's market), while I went to pick up a few additional items at Dispensa Familiar (a grocery store chain owned by WalMart). One of the items I picked up was eggs, which came in a 30 count container. I was amazed that they actually made it back to the apartment without any losses.

Meeting up once again with Linda, we headed over to the chicken bus terminal to find a chicken bus to Alotenango. We don't actually want to go to Alotenango, but it's the only route that goes by our road across from the cemetery. Before long a chicken bus appeared and, along with others who were also waiting, we boarded. As we headed out of town, more and more people got on the bus until it felt like a human sardine can. Both Linda and I were sandwiched in between two other people.

As soon as we had passed through Ciudad Vieja, I started looking for our cemetery. Seeing it, I began moving towards the front of the bus, where I told the driver that I needed to get off at "la fin de la cemetaria." This wasn't the first time we had ridden with this driver and ayudante (helper who collects fares, loads luggage and announces the destination along the route), so they knew where we wanted off and were proud of it. We were amazed!

Once off the chicken bus, we carried our laundry, two shopping bags and two backpacks up the hill to our apartment building. It was about 3:30 p.m. and we were exhausted, so we rested for a while. The rest of the evening consisted of cleaning up, cooking, cleaning up after cooking, burning five Qimo CDs and recording our blog entry for the day, which will probably have to be uploaded at Pollo Campero, unless the Internet service in our apartment starts working again.

Tomorrow, we're up at 5:00 a.m. again to get to La Antigua in time to take a 7:00 a.m. chicken bus to Chimaltenago and the Melotto School, where I hope I can get Qimo working on those five ancient computers. This time, instead of waiting on the highway down the road from our apartment, we're going to walk to the beginning of the cemetery, where the road to Dueñas meets the road that passes our apartment. There's a stop sign there. Maybe the chicken bus from Dueñas will notice it and stop and we can sneak on.

Our First Trip to Melotto School - February 3

Today was the day that we would be going to Chimaltenango to see what we could do with the computer lab at the Melotto School. We were sure that we had enough time to get to La Antigua, when we walked to the nearby road. While we were waiting for a chicken bus, a woman came down our lane in an SUV. She asked if we were going to La Antigua. We said we were and she invited us to climb in her vehicle. Her 5 year old daughter was sitting in the front seat wearing her school uniform. As we drove down the highway, the mother informed us that we would need to stop by her daughter's colegio, as today was the first day of the new school year. It was also the daughter's first day of school, so mother had to escort her to her classroom. After the mother returned, she resumed our trip until we were on the outside edge of La Antigua. As we entered the far edge of the town, she informed us that we could pick up a bus to the downtown area along the road, but she had to make a turn to go to work. We got out and walked the short distance to the parada (bus stop) and soon a bus arrived to take us the remaining way into La Antigua. We were about 25 minutes late and Kristen, who would be going with us to the Melotto School, was just about ready to leave without us when we arrived.

We walked to the chicken bus staging area behind the mercado and learned what bus we would need to take for the first part of our journey. Finding one, we boarded and began the trip that would take us to where the road we were on crossed the Pan American highway. There we would get off and find another bus to take us the short 3 kilometer distance to the road that led to the school. We learned that most bus drivers don't want to deal with short distance riders, but soon found a bus that would take us.

We got off at the road leading to the school and walked the short distance to the school gate, where the grounds keeper admitted us. The Melotto School is a small, private Catholic school that primarily serves poor children in the surrounding area. Although they had almost 450 students enrolled last year, the world-wide recession has reduced or eliminated much of the money sent home by Guatemalan workers in the U.S. This year, there are only about 320 students enrolled.

Once on the school grounds, we were greeted by students and staff who saw us. Once we entered the school office, we were quickly greeted by the school principal, who is a Catholic nun. Naturally, we had to visit with her for a short time, during which she asked if we would like some coffee. Linda and Kristen accepted, but I was provided tea. When the beverages were brought in, there were three cups filled with water, a jar of instant coffee and a tea bag. Linda make her cup of coffee only to discover that the water was cold. Kristen and I just drank the water.

After we had visited for a time, the principal escorted us to the room where the computers were located and I went to work. For the most part, the computers were muy viejo (very old). Two were running Windows 98 and three were running Windows XP. I started by defragging the hard drives, which seemed to help a bit. After a while, Kristen told us that the previous principal had been fired. Before he left, he had announced that anything that had been obtained for the school while he was in charge, was his! After seeing the state of the computers we were working with and noting that several had come from Germany, Kristen surmised that someone, perhaps the former principal, had made off with the newer computers and left the junk behind. Can you imagine anyone so low that they would steal items intended for children? On the other hand, the former president of Guatemala has been charged with diverting funds for a variety of projects, including libraries, into his personal accounts. Evidently there will be an attempt to try him for those diversions.

Before we left the school, we looked at the newly updated library that Kristen had created. They have a computer program to keep track of their books and Linda is going to enter the student information into the database for them.

After leaving the school, we walked about 1 kilometer to a small restaurant for lunch. After lunch, we boarded another chicken bus for the remaining distance to the cross road, where we would head back to La Antigua. After reaching the cross road, we quickly found another bus heading our direction, but we would be making a short stop at Child Aid's storage area, on the grounds of a school along our route. Kristen had asked me to check out a computer she had been issued. It was one of 40 that Child Aid had received from a U.S. non-profit. The school is on the site of a former military base. One of the provisions of the 1995 Peace Accords that ended the 36 year civil war was that most of the military bases would be converted to civilian use, such as schools.

We got off at the school and walked to the storage area, a former military barracks. Once we started setting up Kristen's computer, we discovered that we didn't have power cords for the tower or the monitor. Digging in a junk box and a closet remedied that problem. That was when we discovered our second problem. The only working electrical outlet in the building was ungrounded and we only had one ungrounded adapter. I suggested to Kristen that she pick up a power strip so that we could try again tomorrow.

Being unable to do anything more there, we walked back to the road and quickly boarded another chicken bus heading for La Antigua. Linda compared that trip to Disneyland's Space Mountain in daylight! It was quite a ride, but we arrived in La Antigua safe and sound.

Before returning to our apartment, we stopped by the Bodegana (a warehouse grocery/department store) and picked up a larger pot to make soup and some things to make a lunch for our trip tomorrow. Since it was close to 5:00 p.m., we decided to have dinner at Pollo Campero, the Guatemalan version of KFC. We had grilled chicken, Caesar salad (or so they said), corn tortillas and a Pepsi Light (Diet).

Supper over, we headed for the chicken bus staging area, found a bus heading our direction and held on tight. For the first time, I was able to convince a driver to let us out at the end of the cemetery. It took some convincing, but I was successful and we walked the short distance to our apartment.

Once home, we fired up our computers and had a video chat with Donna, Syd, Nic, Cos and Gia, while we fixed the soup for tomorrow night's dinner. Tomorrow our day will begin at about 5:00 a.m., so that we can meet Kristen at 6:45 a.m., so that we can board a 7:00 a.m. bus, because she has an early morning meeting to attend at the school. Otherwise, we will have to make the trip back to Melotto School on our own and I'm not sure we're up to it yet.

February 2

Today we will be doing some shopping so that we can do some cooking, but mainly relaxing. We once again went out to the road to get a chicken bus, but made another mistake. Rather than wait at our drive where we were picked up the day before, we started walking toward Ciudad Vieja. I thought it would be good for my bruised leg. What we discovered was that the chicken buses that would stop at our drive, kept right on going between there and C.V. We finally got one at a parada (bus stop) in C.V. and proceeded to La Antigua.

Once in La Antigua, we explored the mercado (market) before going to the bodega. We needed a bomba (pump) for our garrafón (five gallon water bottle). We also bought some small pots to cook with and other supplies. We then went to the mercado and bought some vegetables for a soup we were planning to fix for supper. Since it was about time for lunch, we decided to throw caution to the wind and eat in a comedor (small food stand with seating) in the mercado. I asked what the comida tipica (blue plate special) was and was told it was Chicken Pepian, the same meal we had enjoyed last night. When it was served, although the servings were a smaller lunch size, it was quite tasty. In the sauce and absent the night before was a serving of guisquil (http://revuemag.com/2009/09/guisquil/), a type of mild flavored squash that picks up the flavor of what it is cooked with. By the way, the lunch, with canned sodas, was only 30 quetzales (about $3.75) for the two of us. The sauce was also better(spicier), in my opinion.

Following lunch, we went looking for a chicken bus to take us back to the apartment. This time, we found one going our way (apologies to Bing Crosby) and were dropped off much closer to where we wanted to get out. Our apartment is across the road from the C.V. cemetery and I've still not been successful getting us to it's last exit. The best I've been able to do is the last "public" exit from the cemetery, which is still quite close to where we want to be. Exercise, after all, is good for you.

Once back in the apartment, we checked in with our gmail account, found that Donna (our oldest daughter who lives in California) was logged in, so we invited her to join us on a gmail video chat. She responded and we enjoyed visiting with her, Nic, Cos and Gia until it was time to take Nic to school. When we disconnected, we discovered that Susan (our middle daughter in Texas) was online, so we did some video chatting with her. After she disconnected so that she could pick up Erik and Max from school, we took another nap.

We were awakened from our nap by a request to video chat with Susan and the boys. That gmail video chat is great and it's free. After visiting with Susan and the boys, we started supper. Linda is our cocinera (cook) and I'm her ayudante (assistant). While she got started, I cleaned the vegetables we would put in our soup with disinfectant called Sanavida (a bleach solution). While the soup was simmering, we made some tea to go with it and enjoyed a huge avocado (40 cents) as an appetizer. The soup was good, but we need a bigger pot, since there weren't any leftovers.

Tonight, we're enjoying some movies in English with Spanish subtitles. Tomorrow we go to Chimaltenango and the Melotto School.

Our First Day - Monday, February 1

After we had moved into our apartment, we made our first mistake. Our landlord generously offered to take us into La Antigua so that we could do some grocery shopping. As tired as we were, we should have declined and taken the nap we had planned. Instead we went into La Antigua, but forgot to take our dictionary, shopping sacks or a grocery list. We did get a sim chips for our cell phones, but couldn't get them to work (solved that night). To top it off, Monday was a restocking day at the bodega (combination grocery and department store) we were advised to use and the aisles were congested. We picked up a few items and decided to return to our apartment. This is where it gets good. I saw what it thought was the bus we needed (it wasn't) and ran to catch it. The curb at this location was at least two to two and a half feet high, so I jumped and somehow missed it. Instead, my leg crashed into the curb. On the way down, I also hit my right arm just below the shoulder. Talk about hurt! I was afraid at first that I had broken my leg, but fortunately, although it hurt like the dickens, it was only bruised. Several people asked if I needed to see a doctor, but I declined, once I knew I could stand on it. I was carrying some groceries with me when I fell, including a a cardboard tray with 15 eggs that was shrink-wrapped. We later discovered that only two had broken. Once I could move again, we started looking for the correct bus back to our apartment. We finally found one whose driver confirmed that he was going our direction, but we discovered that he had lied when he dropped all the passengers off in Ciudad Vieja. Since we knew where we were and where we were going, we decided to walk. It was only about a mile, although Linda argues that it was closer to two miles. Either way, it was a lovely day for a stroll.

Back at the apartment, we decided to take that nap we had denied ourselves. Afterwards, we felt much better. After cleaning up and changing for dinner, we walked down to the road and waited for another chicken bus into La Antigua for our dinner with Kristen, the program coordinator with Child Aid with whom we have been corresponding. Since we were early, we decided to stroll around town, stop by an ATM, check out some bookstores and sit in Central Park near the famous Mermaids Fountain (http://antiguadailyphoto.com/2008/09/09/mermaids-fountain-at-central-park/ - click on the photo for a closer look). The mermaids are active participants in the fountain. Unfortunately, Central Park is infested with vendors, so we soon moved on to the restaurant we had chosen for dinner. We thought we would get a table and be there when Kristen arrived. To our surprise, La Fuente, the restaurant, is no longer in business. There are other businesses there (an Internet cafe and a variety of stores), but the restaurant is gone and the central courtyard around the fountain, that had been so lovely in 2007, was in a sad state of disarray.

When Kristen arrived, she told us that she also had discovered that La Fuente had closed, but had several alternative suggestions. We decided to eat at Da Gusto, an excellent restaurant not far from Central Park. It wasn't cheap (about $45 for the three of us), but the food and the atmosphere was wonderful. We had Chicken Pepian (a Mayan chicken fricassee). During dinner, Kristen told us that she had decided to take us to Chimaltenango on Wednesday, so that we could get started on our computer project. She had told the teachers and students that we were coming and they were very excited. After dinner, Kristen went with us to get some minutes for our cell phone (the sim card came with bonus minutes, but they don't work until you buy additional minutes). That done, we got a taxi and returned to our apartment for a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we would do some shopping and continue to recover from our exhaustion.

Note on the Weather

A friend emailed me and asked if we had air conditioning in our apartment. In fact we don't. We don't have any heat either. As I sit here writing this, we have some windows open and are enjoying a pleasant 70 degrees. It was 72 degrees earlier when I responded to my friend's question. Tonight, we can expect a low of about 53 degrees. We'll probably have the close the windows.

The Journey to Spring - January 31 - February 1

At about 4:30 p.m., we departed for Galesburg. After stopping for a light supper, we arrived at the Galesburg Amtrak station, picked up our tickets and departed on time at about 7:00 p.m. Thanks to our ear plugs, we were able to sleep for part of the trip. We arrived at Union Station at just about 10:00 p.m. and were soon met by our limousine, which quickly delivered us to Terminal 5 at O'Hare. When we checked in at about 10:30 p.m., we had our first surprise. After checking in our luggage, the ticket agent informed us that we had been upgraded to business class.

Our flight loaded at about 2:00 a.m. and we loaded just behind the infirm and found ourselves in row 2 of business class. We had extra large seats with lots of leg room. There were two seats on each side and only four rows of business class seating. Our flight left about 2:30 a.m. and we easily were able to get some sleep. At 4:00 a.m., we were served breakfast on real plates with real metal utensils. When we arrived at La Aurora airport in Guatemala City at 6:30 a.m., since we were on row 2, we exited the plane almost immediately. All in all, it was an excellent flight for which we had paid $100 (half of round trip), of which $43.50 was tax. Thus, the actual fare for this leg of our trip in business class was only $56.50 cents and there were no chickens on the plane.

Both immigration and customs went very smoothly, although the customs inspector seemed very interested in my small bag that was full of books and some computer equipment. After I opened it and let him examine it, he let it through. Outside the airport, we were quickly met by Jason, the driver sent to pick us up and deliver us to our apartment at La Casa de Los Tios outside Ciudad Vieja (about 4.5 miles from La Antigua). By 8:00 a.m., we had arrived and unloaded our luggage into our apartment. For us, Spring had arrived.

Last days in Iowa - January 29 - 31

Friday, January 29, was my last day at the office. It was, as you can imagine, rather emotional. For over 16 years I've worked in that office and put my heart into what I did. At one point, I realized that this coming trip would be different. In the past, I could always come back to work, but not anymore. My staff had a private going away gathering for me, which I will always remember.

On Saturday, we began getting those final things done before our trip. I finished my 2009 Iowa and federal income tax return, since they will be due before we get back. We picked up those last things that we'll be needing, like snacks for our trip, extra batteries, etc. We finally finished what we could do that day at midnight and collapsed. On Sunday, we were up at 6:00 a.m. and finished up by 9:00 a.m. so that we could go to choir practice. The music this Sunday consisted of all our favorite songs from past years. After church (11:00 a.m.), we went to lunch with our fellow choir members and received a beautiful picture of our choir as a going away present. About 2:00 p.m., we stopped by Staples to pick up a USB drive for the trip, dropped off my car at the house and went with Judy and Al to their house, from where we would depart for Galesburg.